Jim DeGrand (left) and Gabriel Zeballos Castellon raise a helium balloon as part of this week's lab in Geog 1900 (Extreme Weather and Climate). Photo: Jens Blegvad.

Faculty News:

Incoming assistant professor Huyen Le has been selected as part of the 2019 cohort for Training and Retaining Leaders in STEM-Geospatial Sciences or the TRELIS project of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science. TRELIS is a unique model for professional development for women educators in the geospatial sciences. 

Kendra McSweeney has been appointed as a mentor in the University Institute for Teaching and Learning’s Faculty FIT (Foundation, Impact, Transformation) program to mentor a cohort of new-to-Ohio State faculty during the 2019-2020 academic year.

Student News:

Graduate Teaching Assistants Emilio Mateo, Mary Grace Thibault, Gabriel Zeballos Castellon and Jerry Zou along with staff members Jim DeGrand and Jens Blegvad have been running the Geography 1900 (Extreme Weather and Climate) tethered balloon experiment this week on the OSU Oval.

In this experiment, the class raises a 17’ blimp-style helium balloon 500’ in the air above the surface. As the balloon ascends we attach a series of small weather meters (Kestrels) at intervals along its tether. While the balloon is aloft, the Kestrels automatically record air temperature, humidity, wind speed and pressure each minute. Meanwhile, students on the ground use compasses to monitor wind direction for each Kestrel. Once the balloon is lowered and the Kestrels retrieved, the students download the data and use it to create graphs of the change in atmospheric variables with height above the surface.

We have been running this experiment for over 10 years now and it has proven to be one of our most successful lab exercises for Geog 1900. It gets the students outside, engaged in an experiment that requires their active participation and It reinforces the principles of atmospheric science they have learned through other class activities. Besides, everyone likes playing with balloons and if the balloon just happens to be gigantic, blimp-shaped and has “Geography” stenciled on it in big bold scarlet letters . . . so much the better!

Upcoming Events:

Today is the Byrd Polar and Climate Center's Symposium: Climate Change Research at Ohio State. Many of our students and faculty are involved.

Our last two speakers are coming in March, rounding out this year's series, Global Africa.

Today,
Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́ (OSU Department of English) will be speaking on  Londoner, Americanah, Afropolitan: Three States of Being Global in African Literature on Friday, March 22.

Lonnie Thompson (OSU Earth Sciences and Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center) will present the Robinson Colloquium, "Linking Climate Records from African Ice Fields and Tropical Glaciers to Document Rapid Climate Change" on Friday, March 29.

Both talks will be in Derby 1080, 3:30 pm.

Darla Munroe
Professor and Interim Chair